Chapter 8: Arc 1 Ch. 7: Angel Cheats

“John!”

While his pearlescent suit coat and pants had dulled to a mundane beige color, the ‘angel’ standing next to me was otherwise every bit the same fedora-wearing cheesy bastard I remembered.

“John, you’ve got to get me out of here! There’s something wrong with this world; it feels like everyone here is some kind of weirdo or pervert! And… and I almost turned into Lady Beryl! Like, more than usual!”

“Rough first day, huh?” he remarked with a chuckle. “You know, there’s nothing wrong with taking it nice and slow, pal. If you don’t pick the tutorial, the tutorial just might pick you.”

“What does that even mean! More importantly, what’s with this starter gear? This thing is practically a freaking negligée!”

I held out the tunic in my hand and watched him give it a quick once-over. “I would have thought you’d have chucked it in the river by now.”

“Hey, I always hold onto starter gear in games. It’s all about the sentimental value; you usually can’t get another copy of it later on, right? Except here the biggest sentiment is how imbalanced magic is in this world, and not in the good way! Can’t you let me start over from character creation?”

He shook his head. “I told you from the get-go: this ain’t a video game. There are no do-overs or takebacks.”

I figured as much. Sighing, I stared back down into the river stained blood-red by the setting sun. “What if… what if I had another ‘accident?’”

Now he frowned. “No can do, partner. Anyone who tries to game the system like that gets demoted to animal reincarnation for a while. If you’re lucky, you might get to be a cute kitty-cat. If not, you could end up reborn as a water flea—or even a barnacle.”

“A b-barnacle? Are you being serious right now?” I asked.

He nodded. Shit, I could hardly swim as it was. I don’t think I would make it as marine life.

“And here I thought you had it all figured out. What happened to that ‘perfect strategy’ of yours?” he asked with his trademark cheesy grin.

“Not cool, man! I can’t work miracles if you don’t even give me proper newbie supplies on day one. Hey, don’t look away! You totally forgot the rest of my starter gear, didn’t you?!”

He scratched the back of his head. “Details, details. Now I’m not supposed to directly interfere once you’re down here, but there’s no rule saying I can’t get you a little birthday present.” John looked around at the surrounding buildings until he snapped his fingers, spotting what he was looking for. “You got yourself a fancy new spell, and I got an idea. Follow me.”

I got my hopes up at first, but his ‘idea’ turned out to be nothing more than heading down the bridge and bringing me to the nearest tavern he could find. I gave him a dubious look and he just shrugged, motioning me to head in after him.

The tavern was roughly half full of haggard men seated at round tables stacked with mugs of ale. They all looked as though they had just gotten out of work for the day. John clapped twice, and every head in the room instantly turned to face him.

“Listen up, folks: this pretty lady here will put on a nice little show for you fine gents once this hat gets full of coin.” He pulled off his hat with a flourish and handed it to me.

What the hell was he thinking?!

To my sickening astonishment, the tavern broke out into a boisterous throng of charging men reaching for their coin pouches. I struggled to stand my ground as a flurry of copper and silver coins came pouring down into the hat in my hands. Then they all started speaking at the same time.

“What is she going to do for us, sing?” one man asked with feverish eyes.

“No, she’s going to dance!” another chimed in.

“I bet she will make her dress disappear!” said a third.

My mouth hung open as I stared at John in disbelief. All that bastard gave me for support was a wink and a grin.

“Your call, pal.”

God damn it, John!

***

I wanted to be able to say that my first time casting Recall outside of practice was a smashing success. Technically it was, if ‘landing hard on my ass’ could be called a smashing success. It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would, but the force of the impact sent a storm of coins flying out of the hat and onto the street outside Ciedrich’s mansion.

I grumbled in frustration as I got to work on my knees hurriedly picking up as many coins as I could find. The last of the sun had already retreated under the horizon, but luckily a generous amount of moonlight shined down on the street, reflected by each scattered piece of metal.

By the time I had finished, I noticed a figure approaching me: a young man with shaggy auburn hair wearing guard armor, like…

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“Long time no see, ‘Lady Beryl,’” said the sleaze Zack with a smirk.

“You again? What the hell are you doing here?” I shot back.

He ignored me and pointed at John’s hat. “Where’d you get all them coins?”

The timing couldn’t be worse… “I’ll have you know that today is my birthday, and this was a present!”

He burst out laughing. “That’s what they all say!”

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“Whatever, asshole. I’m leaving.”

I turned to head off in the other direction, and I heard him following me. “Hold it; we’re not done.”

I don’t have time for this crap! “Are you a sleaze and a stalker? Did you fall madly in love with me or something?!”

Now he had the most unsettling smirk I’d ever seen. “Nah, I’m not into guys who reincarnated as girls.”

What? What?!

“Wh-Wh-What do you mean by that?” I sputtered, grasping to find the right words. “How, er, why—”

“Well, I’m sure of it now.”

“Fuck!”

How did this happen? Not once in all my years pretending to be ‘Lady Beryl’ was I ever outed like this, and to have it happen now by a sleaze like him no less! And I haven’t even been here one whole day! It’s over, it’s all over…

“Come on, Beryl,” Zack said calmly. “A cute girl with huge boobs steps through the Gate and the first thing she thinks to do is to start feeling herself up? You’re not the first, and God only knows you won’t be the last.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

“Does it really? Does it?!” He buried his face in his palm. “Ah, never mind. Here, I thought you’d need this.” He reached over to his side and pulled off a medium-sized fabric satchel with a shoulder strap before handing it to me. “You won’t get very far unmolested walking around dressed like that while carrying a weird hat filled with coins. Don’t think too much of it; these are mass-produced with magic and only cost one silver.”

One silver? As in, the coin he tossed me when we first met? Did that mean… “Were you just going to tell me to buy this all along?!” I shouted.

“Pretty much,” he said nonchalantly.

“Then... Then what the hell was with the whole ‘scumbag routine’ since we met?!”

He raised an eyebrow at the phrase. “You were about to engage in a bit of public indecency back in the square.”

Okay, he had me there. “Still, that was way too far, man!”

He shrugged. “This place is too peaceful these days. I can’t help messing with the newcomers.”

I couldn’t tell if he was still trying to flirt with me or if this guy seriously had no life.

“Don’t you have an evil Demon King you should be training to fight?” I asked.

He gave me a funny look, then his smirk went wild again. “You haven’t found out yet, have you?”

“Found out what exactly?” I replied.

“This is gonna be good. My shift’s just about over, and something exciting should be going down tonight. We can make it if we hurry.” With that, he took off at a brisk pace down the street.

“Now you’re leaving?” I shouted after him. “Do you really expect me to just follow you like this after everything you did?”

“I’m not waiting for you!” he yelled back. “I can’t stand being surrounded by all these uppity nobles in this part of the city.”

“Then why did you even come here in the first place!”

“Because I couldn’t just let you…” He stopped walking and talking at the same time. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought he was actually embarrassed. Then he collected himself and kept going. “Forget it. I’m seriously not going to wait for you!”

I couldn’t believe I was actually considering going after him. I ran through the Recall spell in my head a few times; at the very least I had a getaway plan if anything went wrong, and as much as I hated to admit it, this sleaze was my best lead right now. The satchel he gave me was barely large enough to fit John’s hat with the brim folded in. Once that was stored with the satchel slung over my shoulder, I took off running after Zack with the clinking of hundreds of coins bouncing against each other in that stupid hat.

“What were you going to say a minute ago?” I asked him when I had finally caught up.

“I told you to forget it, okay?” Zack replied. For some reason, it definitely looked like he was blushing.

“I really want to know now! Tell me!”

“I’m not going to take you if you keep asking!”

“Ugh! Fine…”

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